


The Way We Are

by ferric



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 18:12:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7855819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferric/pseuds/ferric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They weren't friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way We Are

Once, Shindou had shown up late to their usual Wednesday afternoon game, and Touya almost berated him for it, had it not for Shindou who got the first words. “Give me a break, Touya. It’s my birthday.”  
  
Touya was taken aback. He stood gaping (with dignity) for a while, until Shindou laughed. “The expression on your face! I wish everyday was my birthday if I get to see your fish-like face.”  
  
Touya said indignantly, “I do not look like a fish,” for lack of a proper response because he didn’t know it was Shindou’s birthday. He felt as if he knew even less about Shindou; for all he had done searching for Shindou’s secrets, he didn’t even know the most basic facts. For all that he knew, they weren’t even friends.  
  
“I’m definitely going to beat you today,” Shindou said, and that was enough to snap Touya out of his reverie to reply, “You wish.” They fell back to their familiar pace, another game unfolding before them.  
  
“Don’t go easy on me just because it’s my birthday,” Shindou said.  
  
“As if,” Touya said. He will never intentionally try to lose a game, ever, especially not to Shindou.    
  
“Really?” Shindou grinned. “I must be growing stronger because I’m ahead right now.” He was.  
  
“Not for long,” said Touya, and went on to attack the upper left. If things went as planned, he would be able to close the gap between them in three moves and gained enough territory to be ahead in five more, but knowing Shindou, it would take much more than that. Shindou was slacking on his upper left territory again, and Touya was a little tired from reminding him over and over and starting a fight over it.  
  
But then again—“You’re leaving the upper left territory open again.”    
  
“I have a plan,” Shindou insisted, placing a stone in the lower right.  
  
“You always say that, but you rarely get to execute those plans,” Touya pointed out. It was true.    
  
“We’ll just see about that,” Shindou said. He made another move on the right side of the board, and Touya didn’t know why Shindou bothered when Touya’s defense there was nearly immovable. He’d had better luck winning the lottery. “What if I want the upper left to look like it was open?”  
  
Touya paused momentarily in his track, the hand that grasped the stone still hovered in the goke. Shindou liked to do that, making his opponents thought that he was more vulnerable than he really was, and then, just when they fell into the trap, Shindou bared his fangs. For all that he knew about Shindou’s vulnerability in the upper left, he’d never attack it more than he thought he should, only approaching enough as to gain one moku and quickly retreated if necessary, but never far enough to fall into whatever trap Shindou had in mind.  
  
“I’m not going to fall for it,” Touya said determinately, placing another stone on the goban with a firm _Pa-Chi_. He had succeeded before, and he could do so now.  
  
“Damn,” Shindou whispered under his breath when he saw that Touya was attempting to cut his territory in eight moves. Touya smiled. Shindou had gotten so much better with reading the board, so much better with reading Touya that it was almost like Touya was facing his other half across the board.  
  
Shindou was forced to defend instead of doing whatever that he was trying to do before. But Touya wouldn’t let him have it easy. He cut off Shindou’s defense, forcing Shindou to make an offensive move as to savage what he had lost, where Touya also cut him off. Touya could read it. He knew that he could bring this game into yose easily and gain a victory, since end game was always one of his strongest suits.  
  
But, just as Touya thought to himself, _“You’re going to move there, just where I want you,”_ Shindou placed a stone in the lower right territory. It was completely different from what Touya thought he would do, which was to lash out at him and attack, then attempted to defend the mid-center. It was one of those moves that didn’t look particularly bad, but didn’t seem all that good either, and Touya realized that perhaps he was the one playing into his opponent’s hand.  
  
But Touya was ahead with a gap that would be quite difficult to close if Shindou didn’t make a move in the upper left territory, which he still left open. However, Touya knew that this was Shindou, and, in consequence, he needed to read deeper into the board, following the path of each stone before forming a concrete picture of the stone formation in his mind in order to understand where Shindou was coming from.   
  
Shindou could try to trick him. Perhaps, Shindou was attempting Kuwabara-sensei’s method in playing mind games with his opponents. Yet, Touya knew that Shindou wouldn’t do that. Shindou wasn’t the type to rely on mind games and intimidation to win. He was a crafty bastard, sure, on the goban, but not with people’s minds.  
  
That opening on the left might not be an opening. Touya had already entertained this possibility, which was why he didn’t try to attack to aggressively there, since he still hadn’t figure out what Shindou was trying to do yet.  
  
Then the thought struck him suddenly.  
  
All throughout the game so far, Shindou managed to figure out the meaning of all of Touya’s moves, knowing how aggressively Touya was approaching him, yet Shindou still gave him the cold shoulder, hovering out of sight of where Touya wanted him. Touya had not figure out the meaning behind any of Shindou’s moves. He was ahead so far, but no matter how deeply he had read, no matter how hard he had tried to reach Shindou, to grasp at Shindou’s shoulder and pulled him back so that Touya could see what Shindou was hiding, all was in vain.  
  
All of Shindou was the Go he played. If that was really the case, then Touya understood. He could see Shindou’s desire to hide the most important part of himself under the guise of being open. He could see Shindou wanting to run from things that were too painful to face; he could see a reflection of someone else as Shindou placed down a stone in the upper star.   
  
The game ended in a victory for Touya, as expected, but Touya felt more unsettled than he was before. Shindou had promised to tell Touya _someday_ , and Touya had assumed that was because Shindou needed time to trust Touya first, but now Touya wondered if there was another reason for it.  
  
“What were you trying to do with the upper left anyway?” Touya asked. When there was no reply, Touya tore his attention from putting the stones back into the goke to look at Shindou’s shock expression. “What?”  
  
“Nothing,” Shindou replied.  
  
“It’s not ‘nothing’ if you said that you had a plan,” said Touya. “And why do you look so surprised?”  
  
“Nothing. It’s just that—” Shindou hesitated. “You’ve never asked before.”  
  
“Really?” Now it was Touya’s turn to be surprised. He was sure that he had asked Shindou at least once before, right? When it came to Shindou, he always wanted the unanswered to be explained immediately. It didn’t seem likely that he hadn’t asked before.  
  
“No, you never did,” said Shindou.  
  
“Oh,” Touya said. “I guess I was always too frustrated at you for making the same mistake over and over again to ask.”  
  
“It wasn’t a mistake,” Shindou protested.  
  
“It is if you lose,” Touya pointed out.  
  
“That’s not true,” Shindou argued.  
  
“Yes it is.”  
  
“Is not!”  
  
“Is too!”  
  
“Just because I lost doesn’t mean it’s not something worth doing!” Shindou insisted.  
  
“Think that way and you’ll never win against me,” Touya hissed.    
  
“Really? In that case, why do I play against you anymore?”  
  
“That’s something completely different, and you know it,” Touya slammed both of his hands on the table. He didn’t know why Shindou infuriated him so much simply by existing.  
  
Shindou scoffed, looking away from Touya. “I’ll play whatever way I like, I don’t care.”  
  
“You don’t care that you’ll lose against me?”  
  
“Of course I do,” Shindou raised his voice. “I wouldn’t play you so often if it wasn’t the case.”  
  
Touya let out an angry, heavy sigh, all of the fight slowly draining from him. He wasn’t sure why he got so angry in the first place, although that was a normal feeling when it came to fights with Shindou. Touya realized that in his fight with Shindou, he never did find out what Shindou’s intentions were in leaving the upper left open.  
  
“Why did you leave the upper left territory open anyway?” Touya asked.  
  
 “Oh, ummm,” Shindou scratched the back of his head. “I forgot.”  
  
“You forgot??” All of that fading anger came back full force. “How could you forget? I kept attacking that spot mid-game. Were you not paying attention?” That bastard. Here Touya was, thinking that Shindou had some hidden secret agenda with that upper left territory. There Touya was, thinking that it was a trap, and if he was too aggressive, he’ll lose. But it was all just a mistake on Shindou’s part, not even a mistake that could be turned into a good hand.  
  
“Ah-ha-ha,” Shindou laughed nervously. “You looked angry.”  
  
“Of course I’m angry, you idiot!” Touya raised his voice. _You made me worry for nothing_ , he thought, but didn’t say out loud. “Why didn’t you defend it?”  
  
“Well, I was going to,” Shindou protested. “But I had to execute my plan.”  
  
“What plan?”  
  
“It’s a secret?”  
  
There was a pause. “You didn’t have a plan at all, did you?”  
  
“I did, I did!” Shindou insisted, but Touya knew bullshit when he saw it.  
  
“No, you didn’t.”  
  
“Yes I did. I just couldn’t execute it at the time.”  
  
“What’s the point of making a plan that you couldn’t even use??” Touya felt his anger began to boil again.  
  
“Why shouldn’t I??” Shindou shouted. “It was a good plan!”  
  
“If it really was that good, then you wouldn’t have lost,” Touya retorted. He watched as Shindou spluttered, clearly unable to come up with an intelligent retort. Strangely enough, their fight today had not escalated to the point of Shindou dramatically stomping out of the Go salon, which Touya was grateful for, but wouldn’t admit it. Maybe they were unconsciously nicer today because it was Shindou’s birthday.  
  
“Whatever, I’m leaving!” Shindou declared before rising quickly from his seat.  
  
Perhaps Touya spoke too soon.  
  
“Alright, let’s get ramen then,” Touya said.  
  
Shindou snapped his head to look at Touya, a retort hanging on his lips, but he was too stunned to say it. Touya counted it a victory the day that he was the one who surprised Shindou, rather than the other way around. He would have comment on this if it wasn't for the fact that he was shocked by his own words.  
  
Touya could see the fight deflated from Shindou, and when Shindou spoke, it was with this hesitant voice that Touya didn’t believe he would hear from Shindou twice in one day. “You know, when I said I’m leaving, I didn’t mean that you have to come along.”  
  
“So I can’t come along?” Touya challenged. He didn’t know why it was so important that he was allowed to leave with Shindou today. Now that he thought about it, the idea of going with Shindou instead of letting Shindou leave the salon alone never occurred to him before, partially because he didn’t want to continue fighting, and partially because he didn’t know if Shindou would let him.  
  
But today was different. Today, Touya was tired of waiting for Shindou to give a signal, tired of reading Shindou wrong, so he was going to lodge himself there in Shindou’s life whether Shindou wanted it or not. Shindou had done the same when they first met, and he had done so by simply existing, so Touya couldn’t find a reason why he shouldn’t return the favor.  
  
“I didn’t say that you couldn’t come,” Shindou said, shock still evident on his face. “You could if you want to.”  
  
“Alright,” Touya placed the goke back and rose from his seat. He didn’t expect Shindou to give in so easily, and to be honest, he didn’t expect anything to come easy when Shindou was involved, but perhaps if Touya had just asked directly, it wouldn’t have been difficult to get what he wanted.  
  
“But you’re buying,” Shindou said quickly, and Touya would have retorted, but today was Shindou’s birthday, so why not?  
  
“Yeah, sure.” Touya grabbed his things from Ichikawa-san at the counter, and Shindou did the same. Before they left, however, Ichikawa-san asked with a smile. “You two seem to get along better than usual.”  
  
“Yes,” Touya affirmed, not giving an explanation even though he knew she wanted one. “Good night, Ichikawa-san.”  
  
The sky was a beautiful gold, blushing faint red when they left the salon. Touya noted that they left early today, probably because they only managed to finish one game without a discussion. The autumn air was cool on his skin, and Touya tugged his scarf tighter around his neck and pulled on his gloves. Red and dry golden leaves coated the sidewalk, crunching under his shoes. Next to him, Shindou was kicking the leaves like the child that he was, and Touya hid a smile and bit back scathing words that would ruin the moment.        
  
“You know, you don’t have to be nice just because it’s my birthday,” Shindou broke the comfortable silence between them. Then, because Shindou never failed to make a situation more awkward for them both, he added. “Are we friends?”  
  
“We’re rivals,” Touya said firmly. He wasn’t sure if they were friends or not, or whether their interactions qualified as friendship, but there was no doubt that they were rivals. Touya liked to stick with what he knew best.  
  
Shindou didn’t seem satisfied with that answer, but he didn’t say anything else.  
  
After walking for awhile, and after being fed up with Shindou’s visible pouting, Touya decided to put Shindou out of his misery. “You’re my one rival, and that’s more important to me than any friendship.”  
  
Shindou stopped in his track, but Touya kept walking, knowing that Shindou would catch up when he was ready. He silently hoped that Shindou didn’t ask that Touya explained himself because he didn’t know if he would have enough patience for it.  
  
Just when Touya was getting worried that Shindou wasn’t going to catch up, because Shindou did that once, just stopped chasing Touya without an explanation, Touya heard the sound of Shindou’s footsteps hitting the asphalt, and, a few seconds later, Shindou’s warmth by his side.  
  
“So, I’m your best friend, is that it?”  
  
Touya gritted his teeth. “Just show me the way to the ramen shop.”  
  
Shindou laughed, and Touya felt embarrassment heating up his cheeks.  
  
He’d never made Shindou laugh before. It was a nice sound, not amazing by any means, but pleasant to the ears. Touya would never, ever admit that.       
  
In the end, best friends or not, Shindou made Touya used the last of his patience when they left the ramen shop with Touya’s wallet empty.  
  
  
Later, Touya got home and recreated the game with Shindou. He stared at the upper left territory, and played the next few moves that Shindou would have played.  
  
Touya realized that perhaps Shindou had not been completely honest with him. He thought about Shindou’s wide, open smile. He thought about Shindou’s pleasant laugh, the way Shindou managed, without trying, to force him to do things that he wouldn’t have done normally.  
  
Touya wondered if he had fallen into Shindou’s trap without knowing.   

 


End file.
